• WORKS BY PERCY MACKAYE
• DRAMAS
• The Canterbury Pilgrims. A Comedy.
• Jeanne d’Arc. A Tragedy.
• Sappho and Phaon. A Tragedy.
• Fenris The Wolf. A Tragedy.
• A Garland to Sylvia. A Dramatic Reverie.
• The Scarecrow. A Tragedy of the Ludicrous.
• Yankee Fantasies. Five One-act Plays.
• Mater. An American Study in Comedy.
• Anti-matrimony. A Satirical Comedy.
• To-morrow. A Play in Three Acts.
• A Thousand Years Ago. A Romance of the Orient.
• The Immigrants. A Lyric Drama.
• MASQUES
• Caliban. A Shakespeare Masque.
• Saint Louis. A Civic Masque.
• Sanctuary. A Bird Masque.
• The New Citizenship. A Civic Ritual.
• POEMS
• The Sistine Eve, and Other Poems.
• Uriel, and Other Poems.
• Lincoln. A Centenary Ode.
• The Present Hour.
• Poems and Plays. In Two Volumes.
• ESSAYS
• The Playhouse and the Play.
• The Civic Theatre.
• A Substitute for War.
• AT ALL BOOKSELLERS
• Uniform with this volume
• SAINT LOUIS: A Civic Masque
• AS ENACTED BY 7,000 CITIZENS OF SAINT LOUIS

CALIBAN

PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF SETEBOS, BY JOSEPH URBAN

CALIBAN
BY THE YELLOW SANDS

BY
Percy MacKaye

Garden City New York
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1916

ENDORSED BY THE DRAMA LEAGUE OF AMERICA

Copyright, 1916, by
Percy MacKaye

All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian

All acting rights, and motion picture rights, are reserved
by the author in the United States, Great Britain
and countries of the copyright Union

SPECIAL NOTICE
Regarding Public Performances and Readings

No performance of this Masque—professional or amateur—and no public reading of it may be given without the written permission of the author and the payment of royalty.

The author should be addressed in care of the publishers.

During the Shakespeare Tercentenary season of 1916, the Masque—after its New York production at the City College Stadium, May 23, 24, 25, 26, 27—will be available for production elsewhere, on a modified scale of stage performance.

With proper organization and direction, amateur participants may take part in performances with or without the Interludes.

For particulars concerning performances wholly amateur, address Miss Clara Fitch, Secretary Shakespeare Tercentenary Committee, 736 Marquette Building, Chicago, Ill.

After June first, a professional company, which will coöperate with local communities, will take the Masque on tour. For particulars address Miss A. M. Houston, Drama League of America, 736 Marquette Building, Chicago, Ill.

“Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands!” The Tempest.

CALIBAN

BY THE YELLOW SANDS

A COMMUNITY MASQUE
Of the Art of the Theatre

Devised and Written to Commemorate the
Tercentenary of the Death of
SHAKESPEARE

Illustrations by
Joseph Urban & Robert Edmond Jones

TO · THE · ONLIE
BEGETTER · OF · THE · BEST
IN · THESE · INSUING
SCENES · MASTER · W · S

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND CHARTS

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Three hundred years alive on the 23rd of April, 1916, the memory of Shakespeare calls creatively upon a self-destroying world to do him honor by honoring that world-constructive art of which he is a master architect.

Over seas, the choral hymns of cannon acclaim his death; in battle-trenches artists are turned subtly ingenious to inter his art; War, Lust, and Death are risen in power to restore the primeval reign of Setebos.

Here in America, where the neighboring waters of his “vexed Bermoothes” lie more calm than those about his own native isle, here only is given some practical opportunity for his uninterable spirit to create new splendid symbols for peace through harmonious international expression.

As one means of serving such expression, and so, if possible, of paying tribute to that creative spirit in forms of his own art, I have devised and written this Masque, at the invitation of the Shakespeare Celebration Committee of New York City.

The dramatic-symbolic motive of the Masque I have taken from Shakespeare’s own play “The Tempest,” Act I, Scene 2. There, speaking to Ariel, Prospero says:

“Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy Was grown into a hoop? This damn’d witch Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible To enter human hearing was hither brought with child And there was left by the sailors. Thou ... Wast then her servant; And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate To act her earthly and abhorred commands, Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee, By help of her most potent ministers And in her most unmitigable rage, Into a cloven pine, within which rift Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain ... Then was this island— Save for the son that she did litter here, A freckled whelp hag-born—not honor’d with A human shape ... that Caliban Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know’st What torment I did find thee in, ... it was a torment To lay upon the damn’d.... It was mine art, When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape The pine and let thee out.”

“It was mine art”.... There—in Prospero’s words [and Shakespeare’s]—is the text of this Masque.

The art of Prospero I have conceived as the art of Shakespeare in its universal scope: that many-visioned art of the theatre which, age after age, has come to liberate the imprisoned imagination of mankind from the fetters of brute force and ignorance; that same art which, being usurped or stifled by groping part-knowledge, prudery, or lust, has been botched in its ideal aims and—like fire ill-handled or ill-hidden by a passionate child—has wrought havoc, hypocrisy, and decadence.

Caliban, then, in this Masque, is that passionate child-curious part of us all [whether as individuals or as races], grovelling close to his aboriginal origins, yet groping up and staggering—with almost rhythmic falls and back-slidings—toward that serener plane of pity and love, reason and disciplined will, where Miranda and Prospero commune with Ariel and his Spirits.

In deference to the master-originator of these characters and their names, it is, I think, incumbent on me to point out that these four characters, derived—but reimagined—from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” become, for the purposes of my Masque, the presiding symbolic Dramatis Personæ of a plot and conflict which are my own conception. They are thus no longer Shakespeare’s characters of “The Tempest,” though born of them and bearing their names.

Their words [save for a very few song-snatches and sentences] and their actions are those which I have given them; the development of their characters accords with the theme—not of Shakespeare’s play but of this Masque, in which Caliban’s nature is developed to become the protagonist of aspiring humanity, not simply its butt of shame and ridicule.

My conception and treatment also of Setebos [whose name is but a passing reference in Shakespeare’s play], the fanged idol [substituted by me for the “cloven pine”]; of Sycorax, as Setebos’ mate [in form a super-puppet, an earth-spirit rather than “witch”], from both of whom Caliban has sprung; of the Shakespearian Inner Scenes, as brief-flashing visions in the mind of Prospero; of the “Yellow Sands” as his magic isle, the world; these are not liberties taken with text or characters of Shakespeare; they are simply the means of dramatic license whereby my Masque aims to accord its theme with the art and spirit of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s own characters, that use his words[1] in scenes of his plays, have then no part in my Masque, except in the Inner Scenes,[2] where they are conceived as being conjured by Prospero and enacted by the Spirits of Ariel.

The theme of the Masque—Caliban seeking to learn the art of Prospero—is, of course, the slow education of mankind through the influences of coöperative art, that is, of the art of the theatre in its full social scope. This theme of coöperation is expressed earliest in the Masque through the lyric of Ariel’s Spirits taken from “The Tempest”; it is sounded, with central stress, in the chorus of peace when the kings clasp hands on the Field of the Cloth of Gold;[3] and, with final emphasis, in the gathering together of the creative forces of dramatic art in the Epilogue. Thus its motto is the one printed on the title page, in Shakespeare’s words:

“Come unto these yellow sands And then take hands.”

So much for my Masque in its relationship to Shakespeare’s work and his art. Its contribution to the modern development of a form of dramatic art unpractised by him requires some brief comment.

This work is not a pageant, in the sense that the festivals excellently devised by Mr. Louis N. Parker in England, Mr. Lascelles in Canada, or Mr. Thomas Wood Stevens in America have been called pageants. Though of necessity it involves aspects of pageantry, its form is more closely related to the forms of Greek drama and of opera. Yet it is neither of these. It is a new form to meet new needs.

I have called this work a Masque, because—like other works so named in the past—it is a dramatic work of symbolism involving, in its structure, pageantry, poetry, and the dance. Yet I have by no means sought to relate its structure to an historic form; I have simply sought by its structure to solve a modern [and a future] problem of the art of the theatre. That problem is the new one of creating a focussed dramatic technique for the growing but groping movement vaguely called “pageantry,” which is itself a vital sign of social evolution—the half-desire of the people not merely to remain receptive to a popular art created by specialists, but to take part themselves in creating it; the desire, that is, of democracy consistently to seek expression through a drama of and by the people, not merely for the people.

For some ten years that potential drama of democracy has interested me as a fascinating goal for both dramatist and citizen, in seeking solution for the vast problem of leisure.[4] Two years ago at Saint Louis I had my first technical opportunity, on a large scale, to experiment in devising a dramatic structure for its many-sided requirements. There, during five performances, witnessed by half a million people, about seven thousand citizens of Saint Louis took part in my Masque [in association with the Pageant by Thomas Wood Stevens]. In the appendix of this volume a photograph gives a suggestion of one of those audiences, gathered in their public park [in seats half of which were free, half pay-seats] to witness the production.[5]

That production was truly a drama of, for, and by the people—a true Community Masque; and it was largely with the thought of that successful civic precedent that the Shakespeare Celebration first looked to Central Park as the appropriate site to produce their Community Festival, the present Masque, as the central popular expression of some hundreds of supplementary Shakespearean celebrations.

In so doing, they conceived the function of a public park—as it is conceived almost universally west of the Eastern States, and almost everywhere in Europe—to be that of providing outdoor space for the people’s expression in civic art-forms.

The sincere opposition of a portion of the community to this use of Central Park would never, I think, have arisen, if New York could have taken counsel with Saint Louis’s experience, and its wonderfully happy civic and social reactions. The opposition, however, was strong and conscientious; so that, on the same principle of community solidarity which was the raison d’etre for their informal application to use Central Park, the Shakespeare Celebration withdrew their wish to use it. To split community feeling by acrimonious discussion was contrary to the basic idea and function of the Celebration, which are to help unite all classes and all beliefs in a great coöperative movement for civic expression through dramatic art.

One very important public service, however, was performed by this Central Park discussion; it served clearly to point out a colossal lack in the democratic equipment of the largest and richest metropolis of the western hemisphere: namely, the total lack of any public place of meeting, where representative numbers of New York citizens can unite in seeing, hearing, and taking part in a festival or civic communion of their own. New York, a city of five million inhabitants, possesses no public stadium or community theatre. Little Athens, a mere village in comparison, had for its heart such a community theatre, which became the heart of civilization. Without such an instrument, our own democracy cannot hope to develop that coöperative art which is the expression of true civilization in all ages.

Happily for the Shakespeare Celebration and its aims, a large measure of solution has, at the date of this preface, been attained by the gracious offer of the New York City College authorities, through President Mezes, to permit the use of the Lewisohn Stadium and athletic field, temporarily to be converted into a sort of miniature Yale Bowl, for the production of the Shakespeare Masque on the night of May 23rd and the following four nights.

By the brilliant conception and technical plans of Mr. Joseph Urban for joining to the present concrete stadium of Mr. Arnold Brunner its duplicate in wood, on the east side of the field, and so placing the stage on its narrower width to the north, there will be created a practical outdoor theatre, remarkable in acoustics, qualified to accommodate in excellent seats about twenty thousand spectators, and some two or three thousand participants in the festival.

If such a consummation shall eventually become permanent there, it will complete the realization of a practicable dream already rendered partly complete by Mr. Adolf Lewisohn’s public-spirited donation of the present concrete structure. Referring to that practicable dream, I wrote four years ago in my volume “The Civic Theatre”:[6] “One day last spring, traversing with President John Finley the grounds lately appropriated, through his fine efforts, by the City of New York for a great stadium at the City College, I discussed with him the splendid opportunity there presented for focussing the popular enthusiasm toward athletic games in an art dramatic and nobly spectacular.”

This new dramatic art-form, then—a technique of the theatre adapted to democratic expression and dedicated to public service—I have called by the name Community Masque, and have sought to exemplify it on a large scale in two instances, at Saint Louis and at New York.

The occasion of this preface is not one to discuss the details of that new technique further than to suggest to the public, and to those critics who might be interested to make its implications clearer than the author and director of a production has time or opportunity to do, that the exacting time limits of presenting dramatically a theme involving many dissociated ages, through many hundreds of symbolic participants and leaders, are conditions which themselves impel the imagination toward creating a technique as architectural as music, as colorful as the pageant, as dramatic as the play, as plastic as the dance.

That my own work has attained to such a technique I am very far from supposing. I have, however, clearly seen the need for attaining to it, whatever the difficulties, if a great opportunity for democracy is not to be lost. To see that much, at a time when the vagueness of amateurs, however idealistic in desire, is obscuring the austere outlines of a noble technical art looming just beyond us, may perhaps be of some service.

As visual hints to the structure (Inner and Outer) of the present Masque, the charts here published may be suggestive to the reader. To the reader as such it remains to point out one vital matter of technique, namely, the relation of the dramatic dialogue to the Masque’s production.

Even more than a play [if more be possible], a Masque is not a realized work of art until it is adequately produced. To the casual reader, this Masque, as visualized merely on these printed pages, may appear to be a structure simply of written words: in reality it is a structure of potential interrelated pantomime, music, dance, lighting, acting, song [choral and lyric], scene values, stage management and spoken words.

Words spoken, then, constitute in this work but one of numerous elements, all relatively important. If no word of the Masque be heard by the audience, the plot, action, and symbolism will still remain understandable and, if properly produced, dramatically interesting. Synchronous with every speech occur, in production, effects of pantomime, lighting, music, and movement with due proportion and emphasis. Such, at least, is the nature of the technique sought, whether or not this particular work attains to it.

A Masque must appeal as emphatically to the eye as a moving picture, though with a different appeal to the imagination.

Because of this only relative value of the spoken word, there are many producers [theoretical and practical] who believe that the spoken word should be eliminated entirely from this special art of the theatre.

Artists as eminent and constructive in ideas as Gordon Craig, and many whom his genius has inspired, advocate indeed this total elimination of speech from the theatre’s art as a whole. For them that art ideally is the compound of only light and music and movement. The reason for this, I think, is because the sensibility of those artists is preëminently visual. Moreover, they are relatively inexpert, as artists, in the knowledge of the technique and values of the spoken word. Being visually expert and creative, they have, by their practical genius, established a world-wide school of independent visual art [assisted only by mass sounds of music].

For them this art has well nigh become the art of the theatre. Yet it is not so, I think, and can never be so, to that watching and listening sensibility for which all dramatic art is created—the soul of the audience. That soul, our soul, is a composite flowering of all the senses, and the life-long record of the spoken word [reiterated from childhood] is an integral, yes, the most intimate, element of our consciousness.

The association of ideas and emotions which only the spoken word can evoke is, therefore, a dramatic value which the art of the theatre cannot consistently ignore. It is chiefly because those artist-experts in word values, the poets, who might contribute their special technique to the theatre’s art, turn elsewhere creatively, that the field is left unchallenged and open to the gifted school of the visualists. The true dramatic art—which involves ideally a total coöperation—does not, and cannot, exclude the poet-dramatist. Shakespeare and Sophocles lived before electric light; if they had lived after, they would have set a different pace for Bakst and Reinhardt, and established a creative school more nobly poised in technique, more deeply human in appeal.

Now, therefore, when the poets are awaking to a new power and control of expression, here especially in our own country, if they will both learn and teach in this larger school, there rises before us the promise of an art more sensuous, sane, and communal than the theatre has ever known.

So, in the pioneering adventure of this Masque, which seeks by experiment to relate the spoken word to its larger coöperation with the visual arts, I have devised a structure in which the English language, spoken by actors, is an essential dramatic value.

Why, then, take pains [as I have done] to make it relatively non-essential in case it should not be heard?

For this reason: that now—at the present temporary and still groping stage of development of community Masque organization and production—there can be, in the nature of the case, no complete assurance beforehand of adequate acoustics in setting, or of voices trained to large-scale outdoor speech.

But, if this be so, would it not be the wiser part of creative valor to adapt my structure wholly to these elementary conditions, risk nothing, and devise simply pantomime?

No, for by that principle no forward step for the spoken word could ever be taken. If we are to progress in this new art, we must seek to make producing conditions conform to the spoken play, even more than the play to those conditions.

And this can be done; it has been done.

At Saint Louis the vast amphitheatre for my Masque was at first considered, by nearly all who saw it, to be utterly unsuited to the spoken word; yet, after careful study, experiment and technical provision for its use, the speech of actors was heard each night by at least two-thirds of the hundred and fifty thousand listeners. Of the seven thousand actors only about fifteen spoke, but these conveyed the spoken symbolism and drama of the action.

In the present Masque I have focussed the spoken word on the raised constructed stage of wood [A. and B. in the Chart], confined it to the speech of eight principal acting parts, and about twenty other subordinate parts, whose speaking lines [from Shakespeare’s plays] are still further focussed at the narrower inner stage [A. in the Chart], provided with special sounding boards.

On the other hand, for the ground-circle of the “Yellow Sands” [C. in the Chart], where the thousands of participants in the Interludes take part under an open sky, I have provided no spoken words, but only pantomime, mass movements, dances and choruses.

To the reader, then, I would repeat, that the words of this printed Masque are an essential, though not an exclusive, part of its structure, and are meant primarily to be spoken, not primarily to be read.

As in the case of my Civic Ritual “The New Citizenship”[7] this Masque can only have its completely adequate production on a large and elaborate scale. Like the Civic Ritual, however, which—originally designed for the New York stadium—is being performed on an adapted scale in many parts of the country, in schools and elsewhere, this Masque may perhaps serve some good purpose in being made available for performance in a smaller, simpler manner, adapted to the purposes of festivals during this year of Shakespeare’s Tercentenary. At the invitation, therefore, of Mr. Percival Chubb, President of the Drama League of America, who first suggested to me the writing of a Memorial Masque to Shakespeare, the publishers have made arrangements with officers of the Drama League for making known its availability as stated in their announcement printed at the back of this volume.

The accompanying stage-designs are the work of Mr. Joseph Urban, the eminent Viennese artist and producer [who has recently become an American], and of Mr. Robert Edmond Jones, designer of the scenes and costumes for Mr. Granville Barker’s production of “The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife.”

At the date of this preface, Mr. Arthur Farwell has nearly completed his compositions for the lyric choruses and incidental music of the Masque. The choruses will shortly be made available, published by G. Schirmer, New York.

With all three of these artists I am fortunate in being associated in preparations for the Masque’s New York production next May.

These preparations have met with many complex difficulties of launching and organization; the time remaining is very brief to accomplish the many-sided community task for which the Masque is designed; only the merest beginnings of so vast a movement can be attempted; but, with coöperation and support from those who believe in that task, the producers look forward hopefully to serving, in some pioneering degree, the great cause of community expression through the art of the theatre.

Percy MacKaye.

New York, February 22, 1916.

MASQUE STRUCTURE

The Action

The action takes place, symbolically, on three planes: (1) in the cave of Setebos (before and after its transformation into the theatre of Prospero); (2) in the mind of Prospero (behind the Cloudy Curtains of the inner stage); and (3) on the ground-circle of “the Yellow Sands” (the place of historic time).

The Time

The Masque Proper is concerned, symbolically, with no literal period of time, but with the waxing and waning of the life of dramatic art (and its concomitant, civilization) from primitive barbaric times to the verge of the living present.

The Interludes are concerned with ritualistic glimpses of the art of the theatre (in its widest, communal scope) during three historical periods: (1) Antiquity, (2) the Middle Ages, and (3) Elizabethan England.

The Epilogue is concerned with the creative forces of dramatic art from antiquity to the present, and—by suggestion—with the future of those forces.

The Setting

The setting of the entire Masque is architectural and scenic, not a background of natural landscape as in the case of most outdoor pageants. Being constructed technically for performance, on a large scale, by night only, its basic appeals are to the eye, through expert illusions of light and darkness, architectural and plastic line, the dance, color, and pageantry of group movements; to the ear, through invisible choirs and orchestra, stage instrumental music and voices of visible mass-choruses [in the Interludes only].

As indicated by the accompanying diagram [Time Chart][8] of its Inner Structure, the Masque Proper is enacted by a comparatively few [about thirty] professional actors, who use the spoken word to motivate the large-scale pantomime of their action; the Interludes [which use no spoken word, but only dance, pageantry, miming, and choruses] are performed by community participants [to the number of thousands]; the Epilogue utilizes both kinds of performers.

Corresponding to this Inner Structure, the Outer Structure consists of three architectural planes or acting stages [all interdependent]: a modified form of Elizabethan stage, [here called “the Middle Stage—B”] consisting of a raised platform [to which steps lead up from a ground-circle, eight feet below] provided with a smaller, curtained Inner Stage [A—under a balcony, on which the upper visions appear, and above which the concealed orchestra and choirs are located]. This Inner Stage is two feet higher than the Middle Stage, from which ramps lead up to it. Shutting it off from the other, its “Cloudy Curtains,” when closed, meet at the centre; when they are open, the inner Shakespearean scenes [visions in the mind of Prospero] are then revealed within.

Between the raised Middle Stage and the audience lies the Ground-Circle—in form like the “orchestra” of a Greek theatre. Here the community Interludes take place around a low central Altar, from which rises a great hour-glass, flowing with luminous sands. This ground-circle is the place of the Yellow Sands, the outer wave-lines of which are bordered by the deep blue of the space beyond. The circle itself, representing the magic isle of Prospero [the temporal place of his art], is mottled with shadowy contours of the continents of the world.

Beneath the middle stage, and between the broad spaces of the steps which lead up to it from the ground-circle, is situated, at centre, the mouth of Caliban’s cell, which thus opens directly upon the Yellow Sands.

All of these features of the setting, however, are invisible when the Masque begins, and are only revealed as the lightings of the action disclose them.

GROUND·PLAN

FOR·AUDITORIUM·AND·STAGE
OF·SHAKESPEARE·MASQUE

A·INNER·STAGE·SHAKESPEARE·SCENES
B·MIDDLE·STAGE·ACTION·OF·MASQUE·PROPER·
C·OUTER·STAGE·(ON·THE·YELLOW·SANDS)·ACTION·OF·INTERLUDES·

PERSONS AND PRESENCES

I. OF THE MASQUE PROPER[9]

Speaking Persons

II. OF THE TEN INNER-STAGE SCENES

[Enacted by the Spirits of Ariel.]

[See Appendix: Pages 159-161].

Of these scenes eight are spoken scenes taken from plays of Shakespeare; one (the sixth) is a pantomime devised from a descriptive speech in “Henry the Eighth,” Act I, Scene I; one (the fourth) is a tableau scene symbolic of the early Christian Church. Those taken from Shakespeare are printed in black-faced type.

III. OF THE INTERLUDES

See Appendix: Pages 162, 166, 172, 184, 187, 190, 195.

IV. OF THE EPILOGUE

• Speaking Persons
• The Spirit of Time
• Shakespeare [as Prospero]
• Pantomime Groups[12]
• Theatres [with Musicians, Dancers, Designers, Producers,
• Inventors, etc.: Creators of the art of the theatre]
• Actors
• Dramatists
• Spirit Trumpeters [Announcers of the Groups]

STAGE·FOR·SHAKESPEARE·MASQUE·

BEHIND THE CLOUDY CURTAINS IS STAGE A OF INNER SCENES (SEE GROUND PLAN)
IN FRONT OF THE CURTAINS IS STAGE B OF MASQUE PROPER (SEE GROUND PLAN)
AT CENTRE, CALIBAN’S CELL OPENS UPON STAGE C OF INTERLUDES (SEE GROUND PLAN)

CALIBAN

PROLOGUE

The action begins in semi-darkness, out of which sound invisible choirs.

The scene is the cave of SETEBOS, whose stark-colored idol—half tiger and half toad—colossal and primitive—rises at centre above a stone altar.

On the right, the cave leads inward to the abode of SYCORAX; on the left, it leads outward to the sea, a blue-green glimpse of which is vaguely visible.

High in the tiger-jaws of the idol, ARIEL—a slim, winged figure, half nude—is held fettered.

In the dimness, he listens to deep-bellowing choirs from below, answered by a chorus of sweet shrill voices from within.

THE VOICES FROM BELOW [Sing.] Setebos! Setebos!

THE VOICES FROM WITHIN [Sing.] Ariel!

ARIEL [Calls aloud.] O, my brave spirits!

THE VOICES FROM BELOW Setebos! Setebos! Over us which art, and under: Fang of fire From mouth of thunder! Hungering goad From belly of mire! Tiger and toad— Setebos! Blood which art on the jungle bloom, Sloth and slumber and seed in the womb: Which art wondrous Over and under us, Setebos! Setebos! Thou art Setebos!

THE VOICES FROM WITHIN Sealèd in a starless cell, We are shut from dawn and sky. Ariel!—Ariel! Why?

ARIEL Setebos knows, but his jaws Fetter me fast: he is dumb— Answering never.

THE VOICES FROM WITHIN We, who parch for dew and star— Ariel!—Ariel!— Must we perish where we are? Tell!

ARIEL Sycorax knows, but she sits There in the cave with her son— Mocking us ever.

THE VOICES FROM WITHIN Ariel!

ARIEL Call me no more, Lest they torment us. I hear them Coming now.

THE VOICE OF SYCORAX Caliban!

ARIEL Hush!

[Gigantic, the twisted form of SYCORAX looms from within the rock.]

SYCORAX [Calling toward the sea.] Come, fish-fowl! Leave thy flapping in the mud And keep thy father’s temple. Call his priests. Thy father Toad’s a god, hath double teeth In his two heads. The Tiger loins of him Begot thee in my belly for a cub To lick his paws and purr, else he may pinch thee Behind an eye-tooth, like yon flitter mouse That hangs there wriggling.

THE VOICE OF CALIBAN So, so Sycorax!— Coming!

SYCORAX Aye, so so: crawling still!

[Malformed and hissing, CALIBAN enters on his belly and arms.]

CALIBAN Syc-Syco- Sycorax! See!

SYCORAX What hast thou got thee?

CALIBAN [Laughs, half rising, and holds up a wriggling creature.] Got A little god—a little Caliban. Ha!—make him out of mud. See: Squeezed it round And slipped him through my fist-hole. Am a god: [Rising.] See Sycorax—her grandchild!

SYCORAX ’Tis an eel-worm. Fling him to the white bat yonder.

[Her form vanishes in the rock.]

CALIBAN [Approaching the idol.] Ariel, Here’s food for thee: a wormling for thy beak. So, my trapped bird:—How sayst, ha?

ARIEL [Sings.] “Where the bee sucks there suck I.”

CALIBAN [Laughing.] Bee, sayst thou? Still buzzest of thy wings, and eatest—air!

ARIEL [Sings.] “In a cowslip’s bell I lie.”

CALIBAN My father’s gullet is no cowslip’s bell. Shalt lie in the belly of Setebos. [Tossing away the eel.] —What waitest for?

ARIEL I am waiting for one who will come.

CALIBAN Aye? Who will come?

ARIEL One from the heart of the world; and he shall rise On tempest of music and in thunder of song.

CALIBAN [Gaping.] Thunder and tempest—so!

ARIEL [With ecstasy.] I see him now.

CALIBAN [Crouching back.] See him! Where, now?

ARIEL In my dream:—He bears A star-wrought staff and hooded cloak of blue, And on his right hand bums the sun, and on His left, the moon; and these he makes his masks Of joy and sorrow.

CALIBAN Where? Mine eye seeth naught.

ARIEL Before him comes a maid—a child, all wonder— And leads, him to this blighted isle.

CALIBAN What for, here?

ARIEL To set me free, and all my air-born spirits Whom Setebos holds prisoned in this earth.

CALIBAN Free? What’s that—free?

ARIEL What thou canst never be Who never shalt dance with us by yellow sands.

SPIRITS OF ARIEL [Sing within.] “Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Courtsied when you have and kiss’d The wild waves whist. Foot it featly here and there”—

CALIBAN Ho, blast their noises! Stop thy spirits’ squealing. Their piping itcheth me like hornets’ stings.

SPIRITS OF ARIEL [Sing on, within.] “And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear”—

CALIBAN [Screaming.] Setebos! Squash ’em!

POWERS OF SETEBOS [Sing below with strident roarings, drowning the song of Ariel’s Spirits.] Setebos! Setebos! Thou art Setebos!

CALIBAN [Exulting grotesquely.] Who’ll dance by yellow sands?—Who’s free now, spirit? Ho, Caliban can squash their music. Free? Aren’t I a god, bitch-born, the son of Setebos Can howl all hell up? Worship me, thou wings! Praise my toad-father in his temple!

ARIEL The priests Of Setebos are Lust and Death and War. Not Ariel—nor Ariel’s Spirits ever— Shall do them honor. One shall come hereafter Whom we now worship, waiting.

CALIBAN [Roaring.] Sycorax!

SYCORAX [Reappearing.] Swallow thy croakings, bullfrog. Call the priests, And fill this spirit’s nostrils with the reek Of Setebos, his blood-rites.

THE SPIRITS OF ARIEL [Cry out piercingly.] Ariel!

ARIEL Peace, my brave hearts! Be dumb—but still be dreaming!

CALIBAN Powers of Setebos!—Lust, Death, War,—ho, now! Hither, and do my father worship!

ARIEL [Stifling a cry.] Ah!

[Enter LUST, DEATH, and WAR, arrayed as priests of Setebos.]

SYCORAX [To Caliban.] Come, toad-boy: watch with me, within.

CALIBAN [Going within the cave, as Sycorax disappears.] Free, saith? Will dance by yellow sands?—Now, Spirit, dance!

[As Caliban goes within, the powers of Setebos come forth. At the altar beneath Ariel, the three Priests lead them in ceremonial rites of primeval pageantry and dance—the sacrificial worship of Setebos. Above them Ariel suffers, with closed eyes. In their rites, Lust pours his libation, and lights the altar fire, which—when War has made there his living sacrifice—Death extinguishes in darkness. Through the dark, which gradually changes to a glowing dusky Ariel speaks aloud.]

ARIEL O Spirits, I have dreamed, but Death has closed My sight in darkness. Spirits, I have begotten Sweet Joy, but Lust hath drowned her in his wine. Yea, I have wove Love wings, but War hath robbed them And riven his lovely body all alive To feed the hungering flames of Setebos. My Spirits, I your master am unmastered. Speak to me! Comfort me! Is there no joy, No love, no dream, that shall survive this dark? Hath this our isle no king but Caliban? Are there no yellow sands where we shall dance To greet the master of a timeless dawn? Or must there break no morning?—Ah, you are dumb Still to my doubtings. Yet the dark grows pale, And, paling, pulses now with rosier shadows; And now the shadows tremble, and draw back Their trailing glories: hark! All little birds Wake in the gloaming: look! What young Aurora Walks in the dusk below, and like a child Turns her quick face to listen?—Ah!

[Below, against the light from the sea, has entered the dim Figure he descries.]

THE FIGURE Who calls?

ARIEL Spirits, ’tis she! O, we have dreamed her true At last—Miranda!

SPIRITS OF ARIEL [Call, in echoing song.] Miranda!

MIRANDA [Searching with her eyes.] Earth and air Echo my name. Who calls me?

ARIEL Ariel.

SPIRITS OF ARIEL [As before.] Ariel!

MIRANDA Light and dark spin webs around me. What art thou, voice—and where?

ARIEL Here—and your servant.

MIRANDA [Beholding him.] O me!—poor Spirit!—What mouth so terrible Utters a voice so tender?

ARIEL Setebos, God of this isle, holds me in ’s fangs.

MIRANDA But why?

ARIEL I will not serve him.

MIRANDA [Naïvely, drawing nearer to the huge idol.] Setebos, be kind. Release this Spirit.

ARIEL He hath nor ears, nor eyes, Nor any sense to know thee by, but only These tusks and claws and his toad-belly.

MIRANDA Dost Thou suffer, so?

ARIEL Not now.

MIRANDA And hath he held thee Long captive?

ARIEL Since old ocean’s slime first spawned Under the moon, I have awaited thee And him thou bringest here.

MIRANDA You mean my father, Prospero.

ARIEL [Exultingly.] Hail him, Spirits!

SPIRITS OF ARIEL [Sing.] Prospero!

MIRANDA Yea, many a starry journey we have made Searching this isle. At last to-day, at dawn, I saw its yellow sands, and heard thy voice Calling for pity. Now my father is come And shall release thee.

ARIEL Where? Where is he?

MIRANDA Here: His cloak is round us now: he holds us now In his great art, revealing each to each Though he be all invisible.

[Reëntering, Caliban comes forward, sniffing and peering at Miranda.]

CALIBAN Hath feet And hair: hath bright hair shineth like a fish’s tail; Hath mouth, and maketh small, sweet noises.

ARIEL [Crying out.] Beast, Go back!

MIRANDA [Staring, amazed.] What’s here?

CALIBAN Ca—Caliban; cometh here To smell what ’tis. [He sniffs nearer; then howls strangely.] Spring in the air: Oho!

MIRANDA Alas, poor creature! Who hath hurt thee?

CALIBAN Hurt? Who hurteth God? Am seed of Setebos: Am Caliban: the world is all mine isle: Kill what I please, and play with what I please; So, yonder, play with him: pull out his wings And put ’em back to grow.—Where be thy wings, Spring-i’-the-air?

MIRANDA O Ariel, is this sight A true thing, and speaks truly?

ARIEL What you hear And see—’tis my master.

MIRANDA ’Tis so wonderful I know not how to be sad.

CALIBAN [In puzzled fascination, staring at Miranda.]

The moon hath a face And smileth on the lily pools, but hath No lily body withal: thy body is All lilies and the smell of lily buds, And thy round face a pool of moonbeams!

MIRANDA [With smile and laughter.] Nay, Then look not in, lest thou eclipse the moon.

CALIBAN Syc—Sycorax hath no such laughing: soundeth Like little leaves i’ the rain! Hath no such mouth Bright-lipp’d with berries ripe to suck i’ the sun— Sycorax.

MIRANDA Who is Sycorax?

ARIEL Ah, pain!

CALIBAN Ho, she that hath calved Caliban to the bull Setebos, my blood-sire. [Pauses at a glowing thought, then cries with sudden exultance:] So shall us twain Caliban all this world!

[He crouches, then rolls over at her feet.]

—Laugh, Spring-i’-the-air! Lift so thy lily-pad foot and rub his ear Where the fur tickleth, and let thy Caliban Tongue-lick its palm.

[He lies, dog-like, on his back, and laughs loud.]

MIRANDA This wonder grows too wild.

ARIEL Go, go! O flee away!

CALIBAN [Leaping up.] Away?—Aye, so! [He approaches Miranda, who recoils, half fearful.] Wist where salt water lappeth warm i’ the noon And shore-fish breed i’ the shoals.—Wist where the sea-bull Flap-flappeth his fin and walloweth there his cow And snoreth the rainbow from his nostrils.

[He begins to dance grotesquely about her.]

Ho, Spring-i’-the-air! shalt leap, shalt roll in the sun, Shalt dance with lily-warm limbs, shalt race wi’ the gulls! Shalt laugh, and call—Come, Come!

Come, come, Caliban! Catcheth who catcheth can! Mateth mew, mateth man: Catch, come, Caliban!

ARIEL O Setebos, let me go free!

MIRANDA [To Caliban.] Peace! Dance no more. Go hence, and leave me.

CALIBAN [Staring.] Hence? Aye, both—us twain.

MIRANDA [With simple command.] Nay, thou alone.

CALIBAN [With narrowing eyes, draws nearer.] Saith what?

MIRANDA [Unafraid.] Go from me.

CALIBAN [Stops, with a hissing growl.] Syc- Syc-Sycorax! Sycorax!

SYCORAX [Reappearing.] Mole in the mire, wilt squeak When thou art trod on?—Bite! Bite, Setebos’ son! Let the brave wonder breed of thee.

CALIBAN Aye, mother. [With rising passion—to Miranda.] A child! Shalt bear me such as thou, with head Of Caliban: no eel-worm, nay—a wonder, With lily feet, that walk. Ho, Setebos!

SYCORAX Setebos! Mate them at thine altar.

MIRANDA [Fleeing from Caliban, pauses in terror of Sycorax.] Save me!

POWERS OF SETEBOS [Sing within.] Setebos! Setebos!

CALIBAN [Rushing toward Miranda.] Mine!

MIRANDA Save me, father!

ARIEL [Calling shrilly.] Prospero!

SPIRITS OF ARIEL [Sing within.] Prospero! Hail!

[A clap of thunder strikes, rolling, in sudden darkness. Lightnings burst from the idol of Setebos. From the flashing gloom, choruses of contending spirits commingle the roar of their deep bass and high-pitched choirs.]

SPIRITS OF ARIEL Prospero! Prospero! Out of our earth-pain Raise and array us In splendor of order! Pour on our chaos— Prospero! Prospero!— Peace to our earth-pain!

POWERS OF SETEBOS

Setebos! Setebos! Lord of our earth-bane, Loose on his wrath way The beast of thy jungle! Pour on our pathway— Setebos! Setebos! Blood for thine earth-bane!

[Amid the tempestuous song, darkness, and thunder, appears on the left a glowing, winged throne. On the throne sits PROSPERO—in one hand, a scroll; in the other, a miraculous staff.]

PROSPERO [Raising his staff.] Darkness, be light!—Tempest, be calm!—Miranda! [The scene grows light, and is still.]

MIRANDA [At the steps of the throne.] Father!

PROSPERO Come to me, child. [As she mounts to him gladly.] Sit here beside me. [She sits at his feet, nestling in the folds of his great garment.] My cloak and staff protect thee.

MIRANDA [Raising her eyes in dread.] But the wild thing?

PROSPERO Must be transformed.—Caliban!

CALIBAN [Crouching at the centre, howls terribly.] Setebos—sire! Sycorax—mother! Hast swallowed them. Lord Thunder, Strike us no more!

PROSPERO I strike no more till time Hath need of thunder. Rise now and be tamed, Howler at Heaven.

CALIBAN [Rising, bewildered.] Tamed, saith? What shall it be— That “tamed?”

PROSPERO That shalt thou learn of Ariel. Now—Ariel!

[He looks toward Ariel, still held in the mouth of Setebos. Sycorax lies heaped and still by the altar.]

ARIEL [Joyously.] Master!

PROSPERO Sycorax, lo, ’tis dead.

CALIBAN [With wailing cry.] Ah—yo!

PROSPERO The will of Setebos is matched with mine To rule our world. Time shall award the prize— Mine own Miranda—to his power or mine. His might is awful, but mine art is deep To foil his power and exalt mine own. Ariel, thy spirits shall help me.

ARIEL Master, how?

PROSPERO Thou, long time artless, now shalt learn mine art To win my goal—Miranda’s freedom. Never Till this immortal Caliban shall rise To lordly reason, can Miranda hold Her maiden gladness undismayed. For that I will release thee from those fangs Of Setebos.

ARIEL For that, dear master, I have waited Long ages, dreaming.

PROSPERO So, wilt give thy promise To learn of me, and teach this monster here?

ARIEL O set me free to be thy servant ever. Master, I promise!

PROSPERO Fly! Run free!—Unfang him, Setebos! [Prospero raises his staff. Slowly the tiger-jaws of the Idol open their fangs. Ariel, with a joyous cry, slips into the air, and—as he floats fluttering to the earth—his unseen choir of Spirits sing with shrilly gladness:]

SPIRITS OF ARIEL Prospero! Prospero! Hail!

ARIEL [Dancing on the earth.] Free! Free!